


Ford Finds Out

by writingonpostcards



Series: Tumblr Ficlets - Check, Please! [7]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Chirping, Gen, M/M, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 19:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12637581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingonpostcards/pseuds/writingonpostcards
Summary: Written for the prompt:Please tell me all about Ford finding out about Bitty and Jack.





	Ford Finds Out

Ford double checks the dozens of pages Lardo has given her for the upcoming roadie. She thought dealing with dressing room allocation was hard (and it is, one hundred percent) but figuring out room allocations is somehow worse, particularly when she’s new, and hockey players are more superstitious than the girl who played Johanna in Sweeney.

“So, who was it I’m meant to pair Oliver with?” Ford asks, grabbing for the red pen she’d stuck into her bun earlier. She comes out with a green one. It’ll do.

“Wicks. But really, he’d be fine with any of the guys in his year.”

Ford makes a note on one of the pages. “Okay, then I think I’m–Oh, shit.”

“What is it?” Lardo looks up from her sketchbook.

Ford double checks through all her sheets before she says anything. She’s not worrying, because there’s no time for that, she’s just already hating the amount of extra work she’ll need to do to fix things.

“I’ve left Eric, um, Bitty,” Ford corrects herself, still getting used to hockey nicknames, “off the rooming list.”

“Oh, that. Nah, you’re good.” Lardo goes back to her drawing. “He stays with his boyfriend when we’re playing up there.”

“Boyfriend?” Ford double-checks.

“Yeah. He’s in Providence. And he’ll drive Bitty to the games and practices and stuff. Should’ve emailed you that. My bad.”

“That’s fine.” Ford grabs another pen from her hair, forgetting she already has one in front of her. It’s red this time. “Just thought I was going to have to redo an entire afternoon’s worth of work.”

“Right,” Lardo says. “I can see why the minor freak out.”

“Excuse you, I did not freak out.” It’s half a lie. Ford has so many notes on these sheets, but she’s not freaking out, she’s _managing_. It’s all part of it.

Lardo looks up and smiles at her. “Knew you’d be fine at this.”

Ford takes the compliment with a gracious nod, and goes back to ticking off the rooming list against the team names. All accept Eric.

-

When they get to the hotel, there’s only a thirty-minute turn around before they’re back on the bus heading to the rink for a game. By the time Ford’s handed out keys, Bitty’s already left with his boyfriend. Ford was kind of hoping to meet him, even just to get a face, but she can wait for later.

One hockey player down, and the bus is still a riot of noise on the way to the rink. She takes out her phone to write a reminder to bring noise cancelling headphones along next time. Maybe earplugs. The noise continues off the bus and into the arena as she follows the guys through to the dressing room. Dressing room? Change room? She should work that out at some point. She can feel the excitement in the air—just like backstage before a show. She loves it.

“Sounds like Bitty and Jack are here already,” Lardo comments, after there are obvious shouted exclamations from certain (Chowder) members of the team.

“Jack’s the boyfriend?” Ford asks while still in the corridor, making a mental note so she remembers.

“Yeah,” Lardo says, turning her head to Ford. “Used to be captain,” she adds with a look.

Ford slows down.

In the short time Ford has been managing the hockey team, she’s more than tripled her knowledge of the sport and its players. It’s not actually saying a lot, seeing as she called practise ‘rehearsal’, and had never heard of Wayne Gretzky (that was one frightening power point presentation when that fact slipped out). She’s more up to speed now, enough to know that the ex-captain is Jack Zimmermann, an NHL certified player.

“Alright,” she tells Lardo, taking the revelation in her stride, and quickly thinking it over. “Who knows? Do I need to keep it from the team? From family?”

Lardo smiles quickly, nodding to Ford, a bit of relief showing in her eyes. “Everyone on the team knows, but not the coaches.”

“Alright,” Ford repeats. “Wait, is there going to be as much PDA as my theatre people? I need a little warning for that.”

Lardo laughs, and Ford feels like she’s passed a test. “You’re safe here, they’ll save it for at Jack’s place. Fair warning for at the Haus, though. Half the sin-bin is from Jack and Bitty.”

Ford thinks to the amount of money shoved in those jars. “Wow. That’s… a lot of fines.” Ford doesn’t think she even _knows_ the full list of fineable offenses yet. She’ll get there eventually. She’s looking forward to holding trial with Lardo one day, which she’s been promised before Lardo, Holster, and Ransom graduate.

“You’re telling me,” Lardo agrees. “I know more terms of endearments now than I thought existed.”

The locker room—oh, that’s the one, Ford makes a mental note; locker room, not dressing room—is messy when Ford enters. Everyone is fully clothed but, so that’s better than most of her theatre experiences, where everyone takes pride in walking around in their underwear for some reason (it’s not anything to do with clipping microphones on easier, no matter how many times certain actors may say that).

Though this is the first time Ford is meeting Jack, she spots him immediately because half the team seems to be gravitating toward him, all wrapped up in whatever story he and Bitty are taking turns to tell. Ford watches for a few moments, enough to see that when Bitty moves, Jack mimics him, and when Bitty smiles, Jack smiles back. Just another case of this team proving all her assumptions about college jocks wrong.

“Listen up!” Ford hates to interrupt, but she’s got a job to do. She gets the attention of about eighty percent of the players. It’s not the greatest, but she’ll train them up to one hundred percent by next semester. She’s got plans. “Gear up. Coaches want you on the ice in ten.”

The majority of the boys spur into action, and she hopes the others will follow.

Lardo leans into her, bumping their shoulders together. “Proving me right yet again, Ford.”

“And to think, mere months ago I had no idea what chirping was.”

Her and Lardo leave the dress–the _locker_ room while the boys change out. She can hear someone following behind them, and when she turns, she comes face to face… alright, it’s face to chest, with Jack.

He gives Lardo a hug, which honestly just looks awkward with how much he has to bend down. Being around hockey players has sure made Ford more aware of her height.

“New manager, right?” Jack asks after he lets go. He is way, way tall, and Ford’s arm is at a laughable angle when she shakes the hand he holds out.

“Yeah. Ford. Nice to meet you,” she says honestly. “Thanks for getting Eric here on time.”

“It was no problem. How’s is all going so far?” Jack adds after a pause. It’s a little wooden, but maybe that’s just the accent, or maybe Ford’s still comparing all the hockey people to the overwhelmingly exuberant theatre people she’s used to.

“Well, it’s not what I expected, that’s for sure,” she answers honestly.

Jack frowns at her, and Ford worries she’s accidentally said something offensive, but then Jack points vaguely to her hair, and says, “You’ve got, uh, some pens in your… bun?”

This time, Ford thinks she can hear confusion in his tone. She reaches up to check and can feel at least two in there. “Never know when you have to write something down,” she explains.

Jack hums. “Smart. This team needs more like that.”

It’s delivered deadpan, but Ford is sure it’s a joke.

She hadn’t put thought into what Bitty’s boyfriend would be like when Lardo first mentioned him, but Jack seems like a pretty suitable person. Pleasant, potentially funny, clearly invested in Bitty. Although… Lardo said half the sin bins are filled by Jack and Bitty, and Ford is finding that hard to picture with what she’s seen so far of them together, and now Jack by himself. Bitty’s pet naming could only get them so far against Chowder and Farmer.

Ford, Lardo, and Jack stand around outside, listening to the steady noise drifting out of the locker room. It’s one of the similarities between this managing gig and the last, even more so with Holster singing a mashup of songs from Spring Awakening.

“So, Lardo,” Jack begins. Ford looks between Lardo and him. “How long do you think it’ll take until the guys start trying to slip pens into Ford’s hair without her noticing?”

“What? Seriously?” Ford asks, bringing a hand up to her hair again.

Jack shrugs at her, smirking.

“Bro, they’ve already started,” Lardo answers with a wicked grin of her own.

“What?!” Ford starts pulling out pens from her hair. The blue one she put in this morning, same with the red, but there are two pencils and a permanent marker that definitely aren’t hers. “Oh my god.” She stares at them in horror. “How did I miss that?”

Jack and Lardo laugh on either side of her, and Ford gives in and laughs too. Gentle pranking, she can handle. Besides, if this is the kind of friendship she has to look forward to, bring it on.

-

Pretty soon after that, Ford figures out why Jack and Bitty contribute to half the sin bin money. She’s come over to the Haus to spend some time with Lardo going over her inventory system for all the gear and uniforms.

Music is coming from the kitchen, and the sound of whisking, which Ford has come to expect means Bitty is baking something. When she pops her head into the kitchen to see what’s cooking, it turns out Bitty is not baking.

“Woh.” Ford throws a hand up in front of her face, then drops is because that’s ridiculous. She’s seen guys making out in kitchens before (musical wrap parties are like borderline swingers’ nights). It was just unexpected to have the guys be Bitty and Jack.

They turn to her. Jack is blushing, and Bitty’s hair is a mess. Jack’s is too actually. There’s an electric mixer going still on the counter.

“Hey, Ford,” Bitty says, stepping away from Jack.

“What are you baking?”

“Um.” Bitty tugs his shirt down. “Lemon meringue pie.”

“Really?” Ford asks flatly, directing her best serious face to Bitty. “Or are you saying that because it’s my favourite and you’re trying to get out of a fine?”

Bitty sighs, moving back to Jack to place a hand on his chest. “Oh lord. Sorry, sweetpea.”

“Seriously, Bitty?” Ford asks incredulously, dropping the look. “That’s _two_ fines now.”

“Ah!” Bitty throws his hands up. “I should just stop talking. I was telling the truth about the pie though. Lardo said you were coming over.”

“Sweet. Thanks for that.” Ford grins. “Now, money in the jar.”

Jack shoves in some notes, rolling his eyes at Ford as he does so.

On her way upstairs, she hears Bitty drop some more pet names, and the unmistakable shocked squeak of a person being picked up without warning.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted to [tumblr](http://17piesinseptember.tumblr.com/post/160132360724/i-see-prompts-are-open-yay-please-tell-me-all)


End file.
